Browse pages of history online
My newspaper column
On July 20, 1909, one of the headlines on the front page of the Greensboro Daily News was: "Milk and water proper drinks for children; Educational department issues bulletin for use in schools; intoxicants and tobacco are poison to them."
Before you roll your eyes, remember this: it took 56 more years before the legislators required the Surgeon General's warning on cigarette packs.
The headline across the top of the Greensboro Record on April 3, 1936, was "Storm death toll reaches 12; more than 100 suffer injuries in catastrophes." A powerful tornado devastated downtown the night before.
On Feb. 2, 1960, there are 18 stories that started on the Record's front page. None of them referred to one of the most famous acts in Greensboro history: the sit-ins at the local Woolworth's. That story appeared on the front page of the second section.
I learned all this wandering around in the old newspapers that we recently digitized and made available on our Web site. (Go to Greensboro.com and click on "Pages in History.")
Among the pages, you can browse through coverage of the opening of the Carolina Theater in October 1927, the November 1979 Klan-Nazi shootings, the February 1983 swearing in of Henry Frye to the state Supreme Court, and the April 1985 downtown fire.
Because of the cost, we digitized only some of the more historically significant papers in our archives. "This assignment was like going into a candy story that has all your favorites but you are told you can choose only two pieces," said news librarian Diane Lamb, who led the project and selected the dates.
Still, it is fascinating to go back in time and read the news told through the eyes of people who lived it. You will notice how news judgment, page design, advertising and writing styles have changed over the years.
And for everyone who thinks we have reduced the size of our type -- we haven't in at least 20 years -- you might be surprised at how small the type is in the old papers.
The digitization project is part of our coverage of Greensboro's bicentennial celebration. We hope to add more digitized papers later.
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Last week, Gerald Witt wrote about two vintage cars being moved and reassembled gear by gear and driveshaft by driveshaft in a bicentennial-related exhibit at the Greensboro Historical Museum. Witt referred in his article to a 1965 episode of "The Andy Griffith Show" in which Goober Pyle rebuilt a car inside the courthouse in Mayberry.
That reference was questioned by several readers, who, it turns out, had forgotten about Gomer Pyle's cousin.
Goober, played by George Lindsey, was on the program from 1964 to 1968. He worked at the same filling station as Gomer, although the two characters appeared together on only one episode.
Why the reader confusion? Witt said: "I'm guessing this is only a question because Gomer Pyle later had his own show. Goober was mostly called just Goober on the show, so many folks forgot that they share a same last name. And that they're cousins."
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Photographer Jerry Wolford and assistant features editor Mike Kernels won a second place award in the Best of Photojournalism 2008 competition sponsored by the National Press Photographers Association. The contest is one of the more prestigious journalism contests.
Their entry, "The Dragon and the G-Man," was a documentary video about the relationship between a Ku Klux Klansman and an FBI agent. Jim Schlosser wrote about the two men last June. To view the video, go to http://mm.news-record.com/legacy/indepth/07/klan_web/